The present disclosure relates to the field of computer networks, and specifically to handling data packets on computer networks. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to searching for regular expressions in data packets on network computers.
A regular expression is a predetermined sequence of characters in a data packet such as a message. Regular expressions may or may not be complete words or phrases. For example, “resid” is a regular expression that, by itself, is meaningless. However, when a computer searches for the characters “resid”, it will identify any incidence in data packets of the presence of any words/phrases that include the regular expression “resid”, including the words “reside”, “residence”, “resident”, all of which are relevant to a search for information about where someone lives. Similarly, a computer may search for regular expressions that are actual words/phrases (“residency”, “home residence”, etc), as well as known identifiers (“ADDR”, etc.). This search for regular expressions is one example of how data packets can be managed.